The Damien Ellis Files
by Willow Michelle
Summary: Harry Potter Style, All New Characters. Students of Hogwarts are vanishing and later being found brutally murdered, and Damien Ellis thinks he knows who the culprit is. If he can peg him first, Elllis might have a chance!


1Damien Ellis And The Unheard Heart

A Harry Potter Fan-Fiction

Chapter One

Faceless Face

It was nearing the end of the light season. Already the days were growing shorter, and seven days out of ten were overcast. The rain had been pouring steadily for the last few hours, and little rivulets had formed in the streets.

From the sidewalk, a figure could be viewed through the window, although she was merely a blurred shape due to the fogged up glass. He paused, squinting through the thin, black frames of his glasses, the corner of his mouth twitching. Yes, that was her. The boy hustled into the café, shedding damp gloves and stuffing them into the pockets of his long, black trench coat. Upon dumping the coat in the booth seat across from her, he caught the attention of a barmaid.

"Butterbeer over here, thanks," he called, settling on the foamy bench. She wore fingerless gloves, and her bare fingers were wrapped around an untouched mug of dark coffee, her pale green eyes looking blankly out the window. Damien Ellis drew a wand of ash wood from his jean pocket, and murmuring a few well-chosen words, waved it over the coat, and steam began to rise from the black fabric.

"How muggles live without magic, I'll never know," he said with the cheerful tone of a student on break.

"If you would take muggle studies you would," she said shortly. Gwyneth Hollis spooned a lump of sugar into her coffee and stirred it with a silver spoon, staring vacantly out the window. Her blonde hair was damp, hanging limply over both shoulders, and her light emerald eyes held no feelings as she looked out into the rainy street. Damien followed her gaze, watching wizarding couples in bright red rain coats and students with nothing better to do than walk in the rain cross the town. A pair of girls in Hufflepuff robes darted past the window, shopping bags in both hands and clapping against their legs as they ran.

"It's spring vacation, Gwyn!" Damien took his drink from the waitress. "Ah, thanks.." He paused to sip it, then sighed in relief as the warmth filled him from head to toe. Damien raised his brown eyes to her. "Let loose a little, before school starts back, okay?"

"It's poured down rain over half the break," Gwyneth muttered. "How can I enjoy myself when I've been soaked to the skin?"

Her own soaked attire, a thick black cloak with a forest green trim and bearing the Hogwarts seal on the breast pocket, was still steaming. Damien checked his own cloak before looking back.

"That's because you've been standing in the rain looking at that stupid shop every morning for hours," he reminded her, downing half his bottle of butterbeer in a gulp.

"So sue me," Gwyneth snapped, and Damien held up his hands in surrender.

"Alright, alright! Geez, Slytherins sure are touchy," he said with an amused look on his tanned face. Gwyneth glared at him, drumming the fingers of her right hand on the tabletop. He gave a shrug. "Okay, so I don't like the rain this much either, but it could be worse, right?"

"Hmmm." The serpent girl took a long drink of her coffee and shuddered. "Wooooh." Immediately awoken, Gwyneth blinked owlishly and set the ceramic mug back down. "Talk about strong stuff."

Damien brushed his dark brown curls out of his eyes and grinned. "What do you say about heading back up to the castle?" He asked, setting a silver sickle on the table to pay for both drinks and picking up his black coat. Gwyneth, admitting defeat, picked up her cloak and slid into it, her tired face brightened slightly with the coffee.

"Alright." She smiled and was out the door before he'd even put the trench coat on, and with a grin, he followed her. He would never understand her, her vacant and disoriented, even snappish, ways that changed fluidly in a bright and energetic personality. Water went everywhere as she splashed down the street, and Damien shook his head. She would laugh at him for being irritable with the rain, then complain for a few hours once back inside about her water-soaked clothes and rain-filled boots. Damien watched her falter, then stop in front of the store, the same one she stopped at every time she walked down this street.

Damien drew up alongside her, not willing to move near as fast as his energetic serpent friend was. As a Ravenclaw, he took the time to think and observe, his house trait. Slytherins, he found, tended to be moody as well as strange in personality, but rarely did they rush into things. That was Gryffindor's job.

"Why are you so hung up on this place?" Damien muttered in her ear. She snapped out of her reverie, whirling on her heel and meeting his eyes. Then, she jerked her head at the storm window.

"Him," she whispered in reply, a hoarse, hushed voice the eagle had never heard from her. Damien looked up and through the window. Leaning on the desk of the shop was a thin, pallid boy taller than Damien and wearing a thick black cloak, the hood pulled up over his head.

"What, you got a crush on him, or something?" Gwyneth looked sharply at him.

"No, it's just..." She cocked her head, eyes narrowed. "He looks strange, don't you think?"

"Just go say hi," Damien suggested. Gwyneth stared at him in surprise.

"Are you crazy?" She demanded, and Damien raised his eyebrows, looking puzzled and giving her a 'what's the big deal?' look. Gwyneth groaned and looked back to the window, then jumped back and hid behind Damien with a squeal.

"What?"

"He's looking!"

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Before Gwyneth could react, Damien left her standing in the rain and entered the shop. A number of chimes tinkered and clinked as the door shut behind him, and the boy at the counter shifted his look from the window to the student standing infront of his doorway.

"Can I help you?" his voice was low and cracked, as if he didn't often use it, and his eyes flashed as he turned his head. The whole shop was lit by a number of candles in the shop windows and on the counter, and made Damien feel eerie.

"Errr...No, I'm just looking around with my friend, thanks," Damien explained. The guy looked at the window.

"Your friend the chick in the robe whose been standing at my window since I opened?" he asked, sound mildly amused.

"Um.." Damien's face cracked into a smile. "Yeah, that's Gwyneth."

"Well, you can tell Gwyneth that I will not eat or curse her upon her entry of the shop," the shop owner said without smiling. Damien nodded.

"I'll let her know," he replied, backing out of the shop. The guy gave him the creeps, no wonder Gwyn stuck to window watching. His friend looked at him anxiously, her eyes dim, and then threw a nervous glance into the shop.

"What did he say?" Gwyneth asked upon Damien's reappearance.

"That you need to get over yourself and just go in," Damien answered, the hair on the back of his neck not quite settled yet. Something was wrong with that shop, and Damien was going to find out if it killed him. "C'mon." Damien pulled at her sleeve, but she recoiled, taking a step back and staring at him.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." Damien didn't dare her what he had seen as the guy had raised his head, the candlelight fully reaching his face for the first time.

Chapter Two

Dragon Breath and Purple Warts

"Damien!" Gwyneth shouted, chasing after him through the rain. He ignored her, a mischievous smile forming on his face, and broke into a flat out sprint. He didn't slow until they reached the gates, guarded by two wise-cracking gargoyles. The called out in clattering voices as the two fifth years raced past.

"Where's the fire?" One cackled.

"The food will still be hot when you get there!" The other chortled. Damien dismissed the remarks without a second glance, his boots clicking on the stone. He could still hear Gwyneth shouting after him, and then they were passing the Quidditch fields. Here he stopped, looking up to the sky. A Quidditch team was hard at practice, and he could see the dark shape of a quaffle volleying from person to person. Through the rain, he couldn't tell which team was practicing, only knew that it wasn't Slytherin, otherwise Gwyneth would be taking the place of the damp, huddled shape fifty feet above his head by one of the giant hoops. Gwyneth played the position of keeper, and it always made Damien nervous when the maroon ball shot towards her. What if she missed? What if it hit her in the nose and broke it, like the incident with the Hufflepuff keeper in the first game of the season?

"I think that's Gryffindor," Gwyneth commented as she came up alongside him, looking up at the darting players about seventy feet above.

"That would be them. Tylers always makes them play in crazy weather," Damien stated dryly, referring to the wiry Gryffindor chaser and captain. He'd met her a few times, mostly at games afterwards in the locker room or in class, but they weren't good friends.

"Yeah, she's a nut, isn't she?" Gwyneth, without warning, slugged him in the shoulder, her face flushed. "What was up with that stunt back there? I could have slipped on the tiles and broken my ankle! But would you have noticed? Oh no!"

Rubbing his shoulder and giving her a mock look of hurt, Damien continued on, walking along the edge of the field.

"Hey Hollis!" a voice shouted. Suddenly two of the chasers and the Gryffindor seeker was hovering a few feet away, all three wearing goggles and riding a variety of brooms. Gwyneth folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot expectantly.

"Ya?"

"Will your boyfriend be running on the sidelines with his wand out, or are you gonna ask the headmaster if you can coat the field with mattresses?" Tylers asked with a smirk. Gwyneth, short of temper, had her wand out and had casted the spell before Damien had registered the comment.

A tiny bolt of electricity shot from her wand, a dangerous thing in the weather, and Tylers received a shock; Literally. The Gryffindor captain hit the ground, flat on her back and her goggles askew. The attack wasn't very harmful, just mildly stunning the sixth year and giving the other two players a start. Damien chuckled lightly.

"Now who needs the mattress?" Gwyneth shot back, tucking her wand away and turning on her heel to leave the rest of the team to check on their captain. Then, glancing back, she muttered, "What she needs is an ego change."

When they reached the castle entrance, Damien glanced back to count the number of brooms in the air. Apparently the spell hadn't done real damage to Tylers, for he spotted all seven brooms, although one was moving a little drunkenly. Stifling a laugh, he turned to Gwyneth.

"That wasn't necessary," he said finally.

"She started it. I merely finished it," Gwyneth replied coolly. Damien knew she had reacted so violently to the comments by the captain because they reminded her of her accident. She'd been diving after the quaffle, had caught it, but lost her balance and fallen the fifty feet to the ground. She had snapped her left wrist, and though Madam Viola, the nurse, had fixed it in a moment, Gwyneth still took the injury seriously. She could be as prideful as the lions, Damien thought.

"I think you're in the wrong house," Damien told her, and she stared at him.

"Oh, and why is that?"

"Because you are worse than the Gryffindors, about stuff like that," Damien said, avoiding her eyes and grinning cheekily. Gwyneth's eyes flashed.

"Don't make me hex you," she threatened. "And I know some good ones!"

"Let's just get inside...Do you think there will be any lunch left?"

"You and your food!"

A shower of sparks littered the hallway, and both of them froze at the shout. "OI! No spell-casting in the hallway!"

Damien looked at Gwyneth, then at the furious Hufflepuff prefect heading their way. They both nodded in agreement.

"Run," Damien said. "The worst he can do is deduct points, if he doesn't see us." The pair took off down the right hallway, towards the dungeons. Upon reaching an empty room, Gwyneth promptly took her hair out of a ponytail, muttered a few words, and her blonde hair was now vibrant pink. She shed her robe and stuffed in a cabinet, then looked at Damien.

"Quick, get something out, pretend were working. I'll deal with your hair."

"W-what about my hair?" Damien sputtered. Gwyneth ignored him, waving her wand in his general direction. His hair became instantly dry and a few shades lighter as he took out several flasks and ingredients on the table. If the potions professor showed up, they were in trouble, but otherwise, they'd be all right.

"Take off your coat!" Gwyneth said, pulling at the collar. He shed it easily, and she flicked her wand, sending the dripping coat flying into the cabinet with her own robe. The cabinet door had barely shut when the prefect skidded into the room, just as Gwyneth changed the color of her shirt collar from green to blue, now a Ravenclaw with Damien. The prefect, looking puzzled, looked them over.

"Err...Haven't seen a Slytherin girl and a boy in a trench coat come through here, have you?"

Damien raised his eyebrows and looked at Gwyneth, then shook his head. "No, sir, we've been working on our Potions project for the professor. Right, Tabatha?" He used Gwyneth's middle name, which earned him a discreet glare before she looked at the prefect, smiling sweetly.

"Yes, we've been right here. If we see them, we'll be sure to send them your way."

"All right, carry on!"

Gwyneth let out a sigh of relief and changed her collar back to normal before retrieving their coats, then turned to the potion items laid out on the table.

"I'll put these away..."

"Ahem."

Gwyneth turned, and her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the Potions Master, Professor Meldon, standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her deep blue eyes looked at them expectantly. "What are you doing in my storage?" she asked with an icy tone.

Damien thought he'd already swallowed his tongue, and could only make vague noises as his head filled with wild excuses. The Slytherin girl, on the other hand, had no such qualms. She stepped infront of Damien and put on a vague smile.

"Oh, sorry professor! Morgan Telvair has some sort of a rash and purple warts she got from a plant, and one of the other teachers recommended Dragon's Breath." She said this all in a rush, and Damien was already thinking of what they were going to say to Morgan. "I thought I could find it myself, but I realize now, I can't. We were just about to come get you," Gwyneth finished quickly.

"A rash, you say. Well, Dragon's Breath would be the best, I suppose." She crossed over to another cabinet, waving it open with her wand, and took out a bundle of dark red stems with yellow flowers. "Take this to Morgan, have her steep it in water, like tea, and drink it before her next meal." Gwyneth sighed silently, and took the plant from Professor Meldon, who didn't release. She was looking at Gwyneth's hair with mild amusement.

"My word, what have you been doing?"

Gwyneth stared at her in bewilderment until Damien coughed and pointed at her hair. Gwyneth got the gist quick enough and drew her wand.

"Oh, transfiguration practice," Gwyneth explained without blushing, tapping herself on the head with her yew wand, the her hair was blonde once more. "Thanks Professor."

"Now we just have to find Morgan," Damien muttered under his breath as they hurried out into the hall and up the stairs onto the main floor, looking around carefully for the Hufflepuff prefect. Nervously, the pair made for the feasting hall, passing the team of sodden Gryffindors as they returned from practice and a few other Slytherins, first years by the look of them, who had caught a fairy and were listening to it's strange chatter with puzzled expressions.

"So it's true, the Gryffindor quidditch team has no life other than Quidditch," Damien muttered under his breath. "You think some of them would have gone home for the break."

Gwyneth shrugged and made for her own table to find Morgan, while Damien hovered at the entrance, looking around for the prefect.

Chapter Three

Jessie Fielders

"What'd she say?" Damien asked when Gwyneth had returned.

"She said she had told enough fibs for me and hadn't been struck down yet, so what could one more hurt," Gwyneth recited.

"What did she think of her symptoms?"

"Creative." The Slytherin girl followed him to his table. The teachers were more allowable during the break, when there were fewer people, and Gwyneth had been sitting with him all break. A few other Ravenclaws weren't happy with the arrangement, as house rivalries still existed, particularly between Quidditch teams.

"Don't knock a Ravenclaw chaser off their broom _ever_ again," Damien mumbled to her, and she grinned, catching the eye of one hostile looking Ravenclaw boy at the far end of the table.

"He got up in my space," Gwyneth replied, smoothing out her robe and sitting down beside Damien. There were only a third of the usual Ravenclaws present, and a few students from other houses had drifted over, while he spotted a few Ravenclaw blue robes at other house tables, mostly at Hufflepuff and Gryffindor.

"Who's that?"

"Hmm?" Damien looked up, scanning his own table to land his eyes on where Gwyneth had looked. "Oh, that's Jessie Fielders, he transferred from a school in America."

"Let's go talk to him!" Gwyneth was up and flowing to the end of the table before Damien had time to protest, but he followed her obediently all the same, fixing his glasses before sitting beside her across from Jessie.

"Hi! I'm Gwyneth Hollis, Slytherin Keeper," Gwyneth said, offering her hand across the table. Jessie looked up, as surprised as Damien by her forwardness. Then, he took it with a wry smile.

"Hi, Jessie Fielders, Ravenclaw..." He paused. "Nothing, really."

"Damien Ellis, also a Ravenclaw nothing," Damien introduced. "How do you like Hogwarts?"

"Bigger, more interesting than Ruby Slayne Academy," Jessie said. "Only about half this size," he commented, looking up at the roof that opened onto the heavens. Storm clouds varying in color from grey to purple black loomed threateningly above, and an occasional lightning bolt spread across the sky.

"What year are you in?" Gwyneth asked.

"Fifth," he replied, taking a drink from a glass of orange juice. "I've got a sister in her third year, over in Gryffindor." He pointed to a girl with long, straight, fire-red hair, who was chattering with a number of other Gryffindors. "Em-I mean Zable. She changed her name when we got here. It's . . . confusing."

"Zable," Gwyneth repeated, watching the girl with glowing eyes, her face in an expression Damien knew all to well. She was plotting something.

"Gwyn-" Damien began, then watched her head for the Gryffindor table. He looked at Jessie. "I'm not following her. Where she gets the energy I'll never know."

Both of them watched as Gwyneth tapped Zable on the shoulder and began to chat with the surprised third year. Zable nodded in agreement to something, and looking satisfied, Gwyneth returned to their table, but didn't sit down.

"Well?"

"Nothing," Gwyneth replied, brushing away Damien's expectant look. "So Jessie, are you going out for the team next year?"

"What she's really asking is if you are prepared to be knocked off your broom by a cheaply aimed quaffle," Damien muttered under his breath, earning him another slug in the shoulder.

"Probably," Jessie said, grinning.

"Excellent, so you play too," Gwyneth said happily. "Meet me on the field tonight, at six-thirty. Get one of the other guys to come with you. And bring your brooms."

Then, she was gone, leaving a bewildered Damien to exchange stares with an equally puzzled Jessie Fielders. "Did we just get challenged to a match?" Jessie asked, bemused.

"I think Gwyn adopted your sister," Damien said in amazement. "She knows I can't fly!"

"We better get another guy."

"We're actually going through with this?"

"Well, yea! I'm not gonna let my little sister tell the entire school that I was to scared to show up for a match with her," Jessie replied. Damien scanned the table.

"I got one. Hey, Kemps!" Damien shouted across the table. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Kemp looked up, a good-natured grin on his face. Riley Kemps was the captain of the Ravenclaw team, and probably the best chaser in the school.

"What?"

"Gwyneth Hollis says she's gonna whip our asses, including yours, on the field, six o'clock tonight," Jessie broke in, and Damien looked at him in surprise. Riley laughed, not looking at all amazed.

"I'll be there," Riley Kemps called back, grinning. Jessie clapped his hands together. "Okay, problem solved."

"Well..well." Damien blinked. "I'll see you then, I guess..."

"Yeah." Jessie ran his hand through his hair. "I just hope it stops raining before then."

"Me too."


End file.
